Today we studied the Berlin Conference of 1884. Essentially, what was done at this conference was the European countries present "divided the African Cake" between themselves. That is exactly what we did in class - we divided up the African Cake. Just like at the Berlin Conference, students who "picked their piece" of our cake, took the piece that had the most icing, the most sprinkles, the most resources. The perspective in 1884 was that colonies should be used to provide wealth to the mother land and, as we discussed, this certainly was the perspective of King Leopold II of Belgium in his acquisition of the Congo.
We watched an excerpt from White King, Red Rubber, Black Death about the Belgian Congo and then analyzed political cartoons around the Belgian Congo.
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